Peep Show

February 8, 2010
Braff’s second novel (after The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green
) is a straightforward family drama set amidst an extreme clash of cultures. In the mid 1970s, 16-year-old David Arbus is caught between his mother, whose Hasidic faith is becoming more and more central to her life, and his father, who runs a Times Square porn theatre. A seemingly modest act of rebellion makes David’s choice for him, and he quickly finds himself enmeshed in the business of adult entertainment. While his increasingly ill father resists innovations like peep booths and in-house blue movies, David takes photography gigs and tends to his dad. His attempts to maintain a relationship with his sister bring David into sporadic contact with his mother, but rather than reconciling, mother and son only grow further apart. Braff brings together two very different cultures with sympathy for both, but the slim novel leaves little room to adequately develop each member of the family, and, as a result, the story doesn’t quite sing. Nevertheless, David and his parents present an intriguing contrast in the struggle to uphold a set of values and the painful necessity of compromise.

March 1, 2010
A New Jersey family breaks up, and an unhappy teenager finds his vocation amid Times Square sleaze in the mid-1970s.

The Arbuses used to be the kind of affluent, assimilated suburban Jews that Braff anatomized in his brutally funny debut, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (2004)—except that Martin made a living running burlesque joints, and wife Miriam was one of the strippers before she had two kids. Now, in the spring of 1975, she and 15-year-old Debra are about to become baalai teshuva, converts to a Hasidic sect, while Martin and 17-year-old David seethe in disbelief. David's narration shows him struggling with his mother, who wants him to"embrace the life I've found." He can't, but he's not happy living with his father in Manhattan, where burlesque is giving way to hardcore peep shows and sex-toy shops. Martin refuses to adapt to changes he finds repulsive, though business associates are making unheard-of profits and the old ways are money-losers. Miriam wants to keep her daughter away from her secular ex-husband and son, and David's efforts to stay in touch lead to a disastrous Atlantic City jaunt with Debra, a Hasidic school friend, Martin and his stripper girlfriend, who puts makeup on the two girls. Miriam, enraged, won't forgive David even at Martin's hospital bedside after he's diagnosed with cancer. Flash forward to 1977, when live peep shows are being squeezed out by video porn, and David's photos of Times Square hang in the Sixty-Niner Diner:"an actual museum inside a dildo shop." He's still pining for his mother, and it's one of Braff's great achievements that we understand this. Miriam is often cruel as she clings to reassuring rules, but she's also miserable and conflicted, not knowing how to integrate her love for her son with the life she's chosen. The novel ends on the day of 17-year-old Debra's wedding, with the rabbi brokering a dtente that readers will hope grows into lasting reconciliation for these touchingly vulnerable, painfully recognizable characters.

Humane, compassionate and very moving.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2010
The lurid red cover and title might lead readers to expect a smutty novel driven by shock value, but instead Braff ("The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green") delivers a sensitive coming-of-age story. It's 1975, and readers are peeping into the private lives of high school grad David Arbus and younger sister Debra. They're the subjects of a tug-of-war between two parents they need and two parental lifestyles they can't completely embrace. Mom is a convert to Hasidic Judaism, and Dad is co-owner of an aging Times Square burlesque theater transitioning into peep shows and hard-core pornography. Neither parent can compromise, so the kids will be forced into hard choices. Capturing time, cultures, and place, Braff finds both the absurd humor and sad costs of two worlds that, despite their polar opposition, share the traits of extremism. David is a likable, believable protagonist, and even the dueling parents are empathetic. Pages fly by as family secrets unspool. VERDICT Only a slightly rushed ending detracts from a deeply affecting book. Highly recommended.Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2010
Braffs second novel, following The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (2004), posits an interfamilial culture clash of epic proportions. In 1975, 16-year-old David Arbus, a photography buff about to graduate from high school, is fed up with attempting to straddle the chasm that separates his divorced parents radically different worlds. His mother, a recent convert to a Hasidic sect, insists that David follow suit, while his father, who owns and operates a Times Square burlesque house, encourages his son to join him in the family business. Most 16-year-old boys would find this choice an easy one to make, and so does David, but he fails to foresee both the agony of separation from his mother and younger sister and the shocking similarity he will find in the two worlds. His fatherdrawing a rigid moral line between striptease and stripper and refusing to add a new revenue stream by installing peep shows in the lobbyturns out to be every bit as much a purist as his mother. Meanwhile, as David sits in the male-only room at a Hasidic gathering and peeks through the curtain separating men from women, he realizes that peep shows come in more than one variety. Braff makes the most of the comic potential inherent in his outlandish premise, but he sees well beyond the laughs. This is a powerful, sensitively told coming-of-age story about the ways in which rigid worldviews extract their pounds of flesh from us all, especially the young.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)